African American Families

The wedding of Morgan Willis is the buzz around the small town, because Morgan is the prodigal child. She was their pageant queen who moved overseas without looking back. Returning to deal with everyone from her hometown is the last thing Morgan wants to do. She doesn' t need everyone in her business, and she isn' t ready to face her unfinished situation with Henry, her high school sweetheart. She' s also nervous about revealing the identity of the person she's going to marry. All she wants to do is escape from her family and return to her life in London.

James Ramsay is twenty-one years old and he has just inherited a building in New York City. After the death of his estranged mother, he finds that he is now the owner of No. 1 Dutch Street - a five-story brownstone near the World Trade Center. As James takes up residence there, trying to figure out his next move, he gets to know the only other tenant: an elderly black woman named Nellydean. Under a mounting tide of taxes, James finds himself faced with a stark choice.

In Look For Me and I’ll Be Gone, his sixth collection of stories, John Edgar Wideman imbues with energy and life the concerns that have consistently infused his fiction and nonfiction. How does it feel to grow up in America, a nation that - despite knowing better, despite its own laws, despite experiencing for hundreds of years the deadly perils and heartbreak of racial division - encourages (sometimes unwittingly, but often on purpose) its citizens to see themselves as colored or white, as inferior or superior.

In The White Peril, Omo Moses deftly interweaves his own life story with excerpts from both his great-grandfather's sermons and the writings of his father, the civil rights activist Bob Moses. The result is a powerful chorus of voices that spans 3 generations of an African American family, all shining a light on the Black experience, all calling fiercely for racial justice.

Roux is a novel that brims with family, secrets, and love. Award-winning author Tamika Christy writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of relationships, and the family ties that bond. Written in the vein of Steel Magnolias, the story takes us into the lives of African American families with their unique hardships, triumphs in relationships, culture, and values. It is relatable, comforting, and challenging.

My mission in life is simple. Family. Food. Freedom. Most people don't question my love for my family. And I make my living as a celebrity chef. The freedom part? The thought of being confined-behind bars, at a desk, or in a monogamous relationship-is not something I want for myself. Unfortunately, it becomes a problem when women want to make me their Forever Bae. Even after I make it clear that I'm not looking for more than short interlude.

Over the course of more than twenty years, James D. Richardson and his wife, Lori, retraced the steps of his ancestor, George Richardson (1824-1911), across nine states, uncovering letters, diaries, and more memoirs hidden away. Their journey brought them to the brink of the racial divide in America, revealing how his great-great-grandfather Richardson played a role in the Underground Railroad, served as a chaplain to a Black Union regiment in the Civil War, and founded a college in Texas for the formerly enslaved.

Anissa Dent is experiencing heartbreak like none she’s ever felt. Her husband of nearly twenty years has fallen victim to crack cocaine after a devastating loss. All her efforts to help him have failed, and to protect herself and her sons, she divorces him and has him removed from their home. That doesn’t stop him from popping in and out of their lives with promises of getting clean. Anissa desperately wants to move on in her life, but her love for what once was is holding her back. However, attending a family barbeque with her son proves to be the restart she desperately needs.

When her husband dies, Charlotte can’t face the things she’s done that could tear her family apart. Especially when her mama leaves her to grieve alone. So she drops a goodbye letter in the cookie jar and flees south to escape everything—her life, her three daughters, the mistakes she’s made, and the secrets eating her alive.

The next generation of the Jamiesons want to make this the best Christmas celebration ever. Presents aren't required. With the help of their Robnett cousins, sisters Kami and Victoria are creating traditional and new dishes for their family. What's not on the menu is romance. But the holidays are the perfect time to fall in love.

Rylan Douglas, a calf roper and assistant CFO for Henderson Ranch and Farms, finds himself in a predicament. He’s fallen in love with a woman eight years his junior. That wouldn’t be a problem if they were older. While she’s an adult, he’s still hesitant about pursuing her. He doesn’t want anyone to think he’s taking advantage of her, especially since she’s extremely trusting of him. Her intellectual disability makes her even more vulnerable. However, he can’t seem to move on because he knows his heart belongs to her.

Professional basketball player Nate Guillory has a good life. He enjoyed his childhood as the only child in a single-parent home. There is only one thing he feels he missed out on: knowing his father. Although he had a great upbringing, he feels that it is his right to know the identity of his father and why they weren’t afforded the opportunity to have a relationship. Because his mother isn’t as forthcoming with information, Nate seeks out rapper, Noah Brooks, who is the bonus son of his now deceased father.

Loving hard doesn’t do anyone any good when the love isn’t reciprocated. If Rondo Simpson could have a do-over in his love life, he would jump at the opportunity. The woman he’s loved for over ten years has committed the ultimate betrayal and has convinced him that love just isn’t in the cards for him. Even attempts at love before her seemed to be one-sided and left him heartbroken. However, unexpectedly, the type of woman he’s been longing for walks into his life when everything is in disarray, stealing his attention from the word go.

Award-winning author Ernest Hill—who Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler called “one of our finest writers”—has drawn favorable comparisons to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison with his powerful novels. Hill’s Family Ties tells the story of D’Ray Reid, who has put prison behind him and wants to repair his broken relationship with his mother. But when D’Ray comes home, lies and legal troubles haunt his every move.

Growing up poor in Texas, Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich husband. Now living in the lap of luxury in San Francisco, her only job is to fawn over her much-older husband, so it's been easy for her to balance a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the 16-year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Vera figures that a little hush money every month will ensure her husband's fortune is hers alone....

In the finale, everyone is battling their own demons. Messiah may have done something that could end her relationship with her daughter and husband. Has she gone too far, or like usual Messiah, did she know what she was doing? Staten is stuck on trying to handle loving Liberty, even after she ended things, be a father to he and Chanel’s daughter, and be there for a pregnant Maliah as well. Can he juggle it all, while trying to be there for his big brother too?

As a publicist for professional athletes, Antonio Vega is used to solving problems and spinning stories to the benefit of his clients. Yet, he can't seem to convince his wife that he has been and always will be faithful, and her lack of trust tests the limits of his patience.

Sexy high-school teacher Matthew Lassiter has found the woman of his dreams. She loves and understands his desire for the simple life of mentoring teens. The larger-than-life siblings who surround him excel in just about everything they do. While that is financially beneficial for them, his choice to teach is not as profitable. When the opportunity for a different career is put on the table, planning a life with Leah has Matt questioning his decision.

James Beard award - winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history.

Born in 1937 and raised by her physician great aunt, chorus-line dancing grandmother, and glamorous murdermystery writing mother, psychotherapist Carole Ione knew more about the men in her family than she did about her secretive female forbearers. This critically acclaimed memoir is the lyrical fruit of an 18-year quest for her maternal roots. This is the fascinating truth of the complexities of race and class that make up her family.